A Good Man is Hard to Find

             Flannery O'Connor was born in 1925 in Savannah, Georgia, the only child of a very southern oriented family. Her parents came from a very prominent family. Her grandfather was the mayor of Milledgeville, Georgia for many years. During the time that Flannery was growing up, black Americans were beginning to fight for their equality under the law, a fact that the white southerners were not yet used to. All of these facts helped shape her beliefs and attitude toward life. Racism is a part of history that some people want to hold on to and others want to forget.
             O'Connor uses the grandmother as the main character to symbolism how life was like in the years around slavery and how her life was when she was a little girl growing up. She also uses her grandmother to try to show how the older generation was unwilling to accept the new changes, and how they tried to influence the younger generations into believing their way was the right. There are several racist remarks and issues that take place in the story. The first is her reference to black children "Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!" she said and pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of a shack. "Wouldn't that make a picture, now?" (1136). The term pickaninny is a derogatory term used during slavery to refer to blacks, as if they were animals. The grandmother clearly knows that slavery has long been over but she still chooses to use the word pickaninny to describe black children.
             An even better example of racism is when June Star comments that the black boy didn't have any britches; the grandmother said "Little niggers in the country don't have things like we do. If I could paint a picture, I'd paint that picture."(1136). First off the use of the word nigger shows just how prejudice she was towards blacks. The grandmother also wants to paint the picture because she wants to try to hold onto the old way ...

More Essays:

APA     MLA     Chicago
A Good Man is Hard to Find. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 09:32, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/93290.html